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Discovery revamps EMEA ops; Liberty Global backs STX Entertainment

TOP NEWS

* Discovery Communications Inc. has aligned its business operations across Europe, Middle East and Africa, and disclosed a new leadership team for the region. Kasia Kieli will lead the new team as president and managing director of EMEA. The new team includes Marinella Soldi, who will assume an expanded role as chief strategy officer EMEA and managing director southern Europe. James Gibbons will serve as general manager, the U.K./Ireland, Australia and New Zealand and head of commercial development EMEA.

* Media mogul John Malone's Liberty Global plc is making an investment in media company STX Entertainment. The financial details of the investment were not disclosed. As part of the transaction, Liberty Global Chief Programming Officer Bruce Mann will join STX's board of directors.

* Google Inc.'s YouTube could roll out its subscription service YouTube Red in the U.K. "at some point," with a launch date yet to be confirmed, Digital TV Europe reports. The Alphabet Inc. unit's European president, Matt Brittin, also said YouTube is commissioning long-form content for YouTube Red.

PAN-EUROPEAN

* Telefónica SA CEO and Chairman José María Álvarez-Pallete confirmed that the company intends to launch its Aura cognitive intelligence platform in six countries including Spain, Germany and the U.K. in February 2018, Telecompaper reports, citing Expansion. The operator has unveiled the new offering, dubbed the fourth platform, at the Mobile World Congress this year.

* The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that storing copies of programs on a cloud platform would require an authorization from the copyright holder, Digital TV Europe reports. The ruling follows a recent case between Spanish broadcaster Mediaset SpA and U.K.-based VCAST, wherein the latter has recorded shows for playback in the cloud. The Italian court earlier referred the case to the EU.

* Jambu Palaniappan is stepping down as head of Uber Technologies Inc.'s food delivery service UberEATS for Europe, Africa and the Middle East, London's The Daily Telegraph reports. Palaniappan, who has been with Uber for five years, is joining an unspecified London venture capital firm in 2018.

UK AND IRELAND

* Calling the U.K. movie theater group Cineworld Group plc's bid for Regal Entertainment Group underwhelming, some analysts questioned the motives behind the proposal. The $23.00-per-share purchase price is well above Cineworld's enterprise value, according to a research note from financial services company B.

* The British Broadcasting Corp.'s governing body, the BBC Board, approved a proposal to launch a new TV channel for Scotland in autumn 2018, to be named BBC Scotland. The board has referred the proposal to British media and telecom watchdog Ofcom, which has called for comments from the public until Dec. 14.

* The British government, through the Home Office, launched a consultation on proposed amendments to the country's existing data retention and acquisition laws. The proposed changes include additional safeguards for data retention requests, as well the creation of the Office for Communications Data Authorisations to handle data access requests.

GERMANY, SWITZERLAND AND AUSTRIA

* Rocket Internet SE said it has significantly reduced its deficit from a weighted average EBITDA to negative 12% in the first nine months 2017 from negative 19% year over year. Overall, the company's absolute aggregated EBITDA losses decreased by €48 million.

* German media group Bauer Media KG has taken over luxury magazine Madame from Media Group Medweth GmbH, pending agreement by relevant cartel authorities.

FRANCE

* French frequency authority Agence Nationale des Fréquences will launch its third experiment on SFR Group's 4G network for the deployment of small mobile antennas in street fixtures, Univers Freebox reports. The two previous studies were carried on Orange SA's 4G and Bouygues Telecom SA's 3G and 4G networks.

* French telecom regulator ARCEP published a scoreboard of broadband and superfast broadband deployment and subscriptions. There were a total of 28.2 million subscriptions by the third quarter of 2017, a 2.9% growth year over year, and is mostly driven by fiber-to-the home services that represent close to 3 million subscriptions.

NETHERLANDS, BELGIUM AND LUXEMBOURG

* A group of IT sector associations in the Netherlands published a study that urges the government to stimulate development of fiber optic networks to prevent connectivity issues. The report, presented by DHPA, Dutch Data Center Association, ISPConnect, Fiber Carrier Association and two connectivity specialists, stressed that the number of new fiber connections has seen a strong decline over recent years.

* The Dutch government expects providers to complete their 5G networks in 2025, calling the plan ambitious but feasible, Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Mona Keijzer writes in the agenda for a telecom consultation on Dec. 4. Keijzer said one of the main discussion points in 5G network development is the 3.5 GHz frequency, which is currently off-limits in the northern part of the Netherlands due to intelligence activities.

* Media organizations IMMovator and Hilversum Media Campus will be merged into a new organization in 2018, the latter said.

NORDIC COUNTRIES

* Telia Co. AB said that its subsidiary Cygate Oy is acquiring Finnish software company Propentus Oy for an undisclosed sum. Propentus specializes in identity and access rights management, and has customers in more than 30 countries.

* Two of the major owners of Swedish e-commerce company Boozt.com, Sunstone Capital and Ecco Holding A/S, are considering selling between 4.5 million and 5 million shares in the company, Breakit reports. The stake is worth between 317 million Swedish kronor and 352 million kronor, and corresponds to between 8% and 9.4% of Boozt's share capital.

* One of Spotify AB's major owners, venture capital company Northzone, would like to see the music-streaming company listed in spring 2018, Breakit reports, citing comments from Northzone partner Pär-Jörgen Pärson at the tech conference Slush in Helsinki. Pärson, who sat on Spotify's board until last summer, also said the focus for the company is continued growth.

SOUTHERN EUROPE

* Telecom Italia SpA entered into an agreement with networking and communications equipment company Adtran Inc. to implement technologies for the Italian operator's fiber-optic access network, Telecompaper reports. Adtran will implement SDN and NFV technologies and platforms to automate the access network segment.

* Telefónica expects its global client base to reach about 370 million in 2020, Telecompaper reports, citing CEO and Chairman Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete. The operator had about 344.6 million clients at September-end.

EASTERN EUROPE

* UPC Polska has expanded to six more cities, making its fiber network offering available in about 85% of its network, Broadband TV News reports. The Polish cities recentlyequipped with fiber services are Kolobrzeg, Legnica, Swidnik, Oswiecim, Tarnowskie Góry and Radom.

* Belarusian operator Velcom will migrate subscribers of its fixed services to a single platform for its digital TV service Voka by 2018, Telecompaper reports. The Voka TV service will offer more than 100 TV channels, including 18 in HD.

* Türk Telekomünikasyon AS will create a corporate venture capital firm to focus on early and/or mid-stage ventures, Telecompaper reports. The VC firm intends to support the growth of target scale-up ventures through cash and internal resources.

* Russia's Ministry of Communications and Mass Media has proposed to raise the fees for frequency bands between 2018 and 2020, Telecompaper reports, citing Comnews.ru. The levy is anticipated to increase by 14% for mobile connection services and by 100% for other services.

FEATURED NEWS

Hires and Fires Europe: VEON appoints Russia CEO; ProSiebenSat.1 CEO quits: S&P Global Market Intelligence presents a biweekly rundown of executive and board changes in the European media and communications industries.

Hires and Fires: ESPN shedding more jobs; NBCUniversal names International Studios president: Walt Disney's ESPN is axing 150 more staff in its latest round of job cuts, while Comcast unit NBCUniversal named Jeff Wachtel as president of NBCUniversal International Studios.

FEATURED RESEARCH

Economics of Internet: State of Malaysian online video: subscription: Malaysia is still in a period of OTT experimentation in terms of price points and business models.

UPCOMING EVENTS

S&P Global Market Intelligence is inviting everyone to attend "The European Multichannel Summit: Evolving in a Digital World" on Dec. 4 in London. Event registration and lunch will begin at 12 p.m. More details can be read here.

Anne Freier, Sylvia Edwards Davis, Koen Pijnappels and Esben Svendsen contributed to this report. The Daily Dose has an editorial deadline of 7 a.m. London time. Some external links may require a subscription.

S&P Ratings and S&P Global Market Intelligence are owned by S&P Global Inc.